[Atrix 4G General] xploited:
Post-calibration methods of improving Battery Life

Updated:

Post#2 will explain how to solve battery drainage problems when recalibration wasn't enough. It will also explain how battery reporting works, common practices, tips, tricks, etc.

Battery Tips / Tricks / Common Practices

Important things to know:

1. It's important to understand how battery indicator on Android works and how Android manages / reports your battery life. Please read this article:

Your Smartphone’s Battery Gauge is Lying to You (and it’s not such a bad thing)

http://phandroid.com/2010/12/25/you...is-lying-to-you-and-its-not-such-a-bad-thing/

2. Li-ion batteries used in modern smartphones don't have "charge memory". Partial charges won't hurt the battery (e.g. charging from 60% to 80% or from 10% to 50% etc). Feel free to give your phone small charges whenever you have time and need the phone to last longer.

3. Smartphone batteries don't like to be completely discharged or to be kept at 100% capacity for extended periods of time (this actually damages batteries over time). But worry not, the battery software prevents this from happening for you. That's why some of your phones never get to 100% or drop from 100% to 90% minutes after you disconnct the phone from a charger.

4. All batteries gradually lose a small percentage of their capacity after a certain amount of charge cycles. It's a natural part of life. It's always nice to have a spare battery or to purchase a replacement when your current battery isn't to the task anymore.

5. Don't pay much attention to the battery %, just use your phones. I know it's very tempting to track your battery usage every 15 minutes and try to find problems. Been there myself. :D Thing is, if you do this, you might start thinking you have problems, when you don't have any.

Bottom line - just try to use your phone and not mess with the battery unless problems become really apparent.

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Other proven ways to improve Battery Life

If you have re-calibrated to a full capacity (4200mv) but your battery still drains terribly - follow these steps to pin point the problem.

1. Find which app / process is draining the battery.

If you get lucky, the infringing app will show up directly under the stock "Battery Usage" statistics. However, in most cases "Battery Usage" isn't very informative. Most people report that they only see "Phone Idle" consuming most of the battery without much insight into the details.

Things to do:

- install Watchdog

, go to preferences, set CPU threshhold to 20% (or even lower if it's not enough), check "Include phone processes", check "Monitor phone processes", check "Display all phone processes", set system CPU threshhold to 20%(or even lower if it's not enough) as well. Run it for a couple of days.

If you start getting frequent Watchdog notifications about a certain app breaching the threshold - uninstall it, find an alternative.

- install BetterBatteryStats

from here -

http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1179809 run it for a couple of days and monitor apps / processes that are using up more wakelocks than they should.

Once you find the infringing app - uninstall it, if it's a process - find out if it's safe to stop / freeze before doing anything.

2. Freeze bloatware aka "stop the problem before it becomes a problem."

Unless you are running CM7, your rom is based on stock 2.3.4 and still has blur in it. Blur apps and processes might be running without you even using them and sucking out precious batter life while they are at it.

Things to do:

- Get TitaniumBackup

, freeze all bloatware that is mentioned as "safe" in this thread -

http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1182663

Use your phone for a couple of days afterwards and watch for improvements.

If these software tweaks aren't enough, the problem might be with your system setup. Go through these steps which should hopefully fix your setup in favor of awesome battery life:

3. Flash a custom kernel, set up battery saving profiles.

Many people have reported success with this step. Custom kernels are not just for overclocking. A custom kernel with smart profiles will definitely give definitely extend your phones operating life during the day.

Things to do:

- Get a custom kernel.

, the popular choice on here seems to be faux'es kernel, so I recommend it -

http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1156040

Get one of the battery saving SetCpu profiles along with it. Basically, a good battery saving profile looks something like this:

- absolute minimum CPU clock with screen off (something like 275 Mhz)

- lowering CPU clock with temperature > 50C (something like ~800Mhz)

- lowering CPU clock when battery < 30% (something like ~800Mhz)

Many people reported success in using such profile for lowering "Phone Idle" drain.

4. Flash a different radio.

WARNING: Be extremely careful with this. Flashing a wrong radio is the right way to hard brick your phone.

Although some people are reporting to have fixed battery drainage by trying out a different radio, I seriously wouldn't recommend going on a flashing spree unless you know what you are doing.

My advice here: flash the latest 2.3.4 for your carrier if you haven't yet. From there on, experiment at your own risk.

5. Disable Data and Wifi when idle either manually or with an app."

I seriously get surprised every time someone says they have a horrible battery life, when they keep an internet connection on at all times. Constant data always = battery drain.

Things to do:

- use apps like Green Power to disable data / wifi for you when you are not using it

- learn to turn off your internet connection manually

6. If all else fails - start over from scratch (read: clean install a rom).

I've heard reports of people getting better life with Froyo than GB, or that a specific custom ROM solved their problem for them. A million dollar question: if it works for you, why not use it? :p

Things to do:

- try a ROM without blur, like CM7

- try Ninja Speed Freak (developer and many users reported great battery life)

- if battery life is your top concern - try Froyo

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FAQ

....coming soon...

... ask away! :p